"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

gregkavarnos wrote:In 3 days, the EU will ban much of herbal medicine, pressing more of us to take pharmaceutical drugs that drive the profits of big Pharma.

The EU Directive erects high barriers to any herbal remedy that hasn't been on the market for 30 years -- including virtually all Chinese, Ayurvedic, and African traditional medicine. It's a draconian move that helps drug companies and ignores thousands of years of medical knowledge.

We need a massive outcry against this. Together, our voices can press the EU Commission to fix the directive, push our national governments to refuse to implement it, and give legitimacy to a legal case before the courts. Sign on the right, then forward this campaign to everyone, and let's get to 1 million voices to save herbal medicine:

Ah....this is being rolled through the EU by major corporations. Capitalism is the problem here, not socialism. What you have not figured out, yet, Enochian, is that Capitalists use Socialism in order to keep their pet skilled labor pool content and docile while they rape the rest of the world.

Namdrol wrote:Ah....this is being rolled through the EU by major corporations. Capitalism is the problem here, not socialism. What you have not figured out, yet, Enochian, is that Capitalists use Socialism in order to keep their pet skilled labor pool content and docile while they rape the rest of the world.

Then how come America doesn't have all this nonsense the Europeans have to put up with?

America is also capitalist

EU has MUCH tougher standards for everything. Its like a nanny state. They even make Microsoft bundle alternative web browsers with Windows in the EU. Its stupid.

P.S. I am again shocked you rail against capitalism. Would you as a tibetan buddhist like to move to China?

Enochian wrote:Then how come America doesn't have all this nonsense the Europeans have to put up with?

The US doesn't have the FDA?

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

Namdrol wrote:Ah....this is being rolled through the EU by major corporations. Capitalism is the problem here, not socialism. What you have not figured out, yet, Enochian, is that Capitalists use Socialism in order to keep their pet skilled labor pool content and docile while they rape the rest of the world.

Then how come America doesn't have all this nonsense the Europeans have to put up with?

America is also capitalist

America also uses Socialist policies to keep people in line. And they give free handouts to corporations to the tune of trillions of dollars.

EU has MUCH tougher standards for everything. Its like a nanny state. They even make Microsoft bundle alternative web browsers with Windows in the EU. Its stupid.

That has much more to do with the European character and much less to do with Socialism than you might imagine.

P.S. I am again shocked you rail against capitalism. Would you as a tibetan buddhist like to move to China?

I have been in China for extended periods of time. People in China actually have a lot more freedom than you might think. Yes, they cannot speak out against Govt. But in many ways, people in China have a lot more freedom than we do in US, as surprising as that sounds. I was surprised. Unfortunately for the Chinese, they are moving in the direction of creating a federal style government modeled on ours. Why? because it makes it easier to collaborate with large corporations.

Anyway, your simplistic cold war rhetoric betrays a lack of study of sources in leftwing literature. As for myself, I have read Hayek, Nozak, etc., a great deal of conservative writing. They are romantics, as are you --thinking that an unthinking beast like Capitalism won't eat their children. It will. And it will eat yours.

N

Last edited by Malcolm on Fri Apr 29, 2011 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

Namdrol wrote:They are lax when it comes to Big Pharm -- they are quite uptight when it comes to supplements. If you even hint that some herb actually does something, they are on your ass in a new york minute.

I'm sorry Namdrol

But you don't know what you are talking about.

I have been an avid weight trainer for YEARS and know all about supplements.

FDA does NOT regulate herbal supplements. Only for anabolic steroids and ephedra. But in fact the BETTER ephedrine is completely available at any CVS and Walgreens.

Namdrol wrote:They are lax when it comes to Big Pharm -- they are quite uptight when it comes to supplements. If you even hint that some herb actually does something, they are on your ass in a new york minute.

I'm sorry Namdrol

But you don't know what you are talking about.

I have an avid weight trainer for YEARS and know all about supplements.

FDA does NOT regulate herbal supplements. Only for anabolic steroids and ephedra. But in fact the BETTER ephedrine is completely available at any CVS and Walgreens.

Thats why we have huge GNC and Vitamin Shoppe stores.

Sorry, I do know what I am talking about because I have to be careful about telling people what a given herb does. If I tell them that for example that X herb will reduce their cholesterol, this is, in their mind, a medical prescription. They forbid this.

Of course it does, all body building supplements pass through FDA control and testing. But the only herbal body building supplements I know of are Tribulus Terristus, green tea/ginseng/caffeine based fat burners and lecithin, all of the other stuff tends to be dairy based. The EU law does not effect pharmaceutical vitamin mineral supplements but herbal products (not herbal based products since most pharmaceutical medicines are derived from herbs/plants and animals (of course).

Only for anabolic steroids.

Anabolic steroids are not herbal.PS All body building products undergo pharmaceutical control in the EU to ensure that they are steroid free. Something like 80% of tested American body building products contained anabolic steroids that were not declared on the ingredients list. It seems that some control is not always a bad thing!

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

Namdrol wrote:Sorry, I do know what I am talking about because I have to be careful about telling people what a given herb does. If I tell them that for example that X herb will reduce their cholesterol, this is, in their mind, a medical prescription. They forbid this.

I have studied very closely the FDA regs on herbs.

N

You are steering into different territory i.e. "prescribing drugs" and so forth. You need to have a license to prescribe drugs.

gregkavarnos wrote:Of course it does, all body building supplements pass through FDA control and testing.

UM, how come on every bottle it says "not regulated by the FDA"

LOL

Do you know how silly this is?

Every DAY, there is a new supplement on the market.

Well all the American supplements we get in the EU have "regulated by FDA" written on them. Maybe there is an EU law that says that supplements being offered on the EU market have to be regulated by the governing department of the country of origin as well. Like I said before, if it means that the supplement contains exactly what it says it contains then I have no problem with it being regulated and tested. No problem whatsoever! Especially if it means avoiding ingesting large quantities of (completely) unecessary anabolic steroids!

I imagine that there would be supplements that do have "regulated by the FDA" written on them. Like some of the more trustworthy companies would benefit by showing that they are not afraid to have their products tested. There are consumers out there that actually care what they put into their bodies.

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

Namdrol wrote:Sorry, I do know what I am talking about because I have to be careful about telling people what a given herb does. If I tell them that for example that X herb will reduce their cholesterol, this is, in their mind, a medical prescription. They forbid this.

I have studied very closely the FDA regs on herbs.

N

You are steering into different territory i.e. "prescribing drugs" and so forth. You need to have a license to prescribe drugs.

I almost graduated dental school, before getting my ass thrown out.

Well, you see, if you are an herbalist, you have to give herbs to be people to remedy illnesses. As long as all the diseases I describe are in Tibetan medical terms, there is no problem (yet, it's coming). But if for example, I say oh, you have high blood pressure, but taking this rhododendron based medicine will lower it -- then bam, busted for practicing medicine without a license.

So, we must disengage the State. The State, whether Capitalist or Socialist (two sides of same coin) is the source of all social ills. Revolutionary socialism of the 19th and 20th century was a movement of people without power speaking truth to power. When socialists took power, they immediately became corrupted by the very power they previously had been struggling with. Capital, in the deformed "socialist" states, was position and status. But in the end, States are engines of commerce and so it is that the great Socialist experiments begun in the late nineteenth centuries and early twentieth centuries ended in disaster, famine, and general slaughter, of tens of millions of innocents. The fault lies not with the basic ideals of Socialism, the fault lies within the apparatus of industrial society and the State that supports it. The blind spot of socialism is this idea that they could use the tools of the oppression of common people i.el factories, et al, to free themselves, when in fact, the whole industrial mode of production simply enslaves human beings.

Uuuuuummmmmm, I am in Europe, I am a martial arts instructor at a gym, I used to body build, I used to take supplements, I used to read what the labels said on them, etc... You don't want to believe me then that's fine.

Do you do steroids by any chance?

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed GyalpoThe Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

gregkavarnos wrote:Uuuuuummmmmm, I am in Europe, I am a martial arts instructor at a gym, I used to body build, I used to take supplements, I used to read what the labels said on them, etc... You don't want to believe me then that's fine.